In Bed with the Word: Reading, Spirituality, and Cultural Politics
by Daniel Coleman
Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-88864-507-4, 142 pp., $19.95 paper.

I'll admit to not regularly reading what I'd have to call scholarly books. But the idea of reading as a spiritual practice--especially when it seemed to involve reading in bed--appealed to me.

McMaster professor Daniel Coleman's opening chapter pulls me right in: a six-year-old boy lies in a bed, holding a book he doesn't know how to read, yet his action reveals the fact that he already understands the power inherent in the word.

Coleman is also quick to reveal what he means by spirituality, defining it in a no-nonsense way: "By spirituality, I mean a drive or energy in ourselves that is outward-reaching, that is a kind of longing to be meaningfully connected. I mean what finally moves us, what propels our actions and sparks our imaginations." (9) He then spends the rest of the book illustrating the various connectivities that are part of the act of reading.

He is wise in not restricting his interpretation of reading to the printed page, as he considers the many ways we 'read' various other media, from how we view paintings, architecture or film, right down to how we deal with messages on the shopping channel. He does however distinguish the act of reading of print materials from the many other forms of reading we have all learned to do. He goes so far as to create a new label for what we might think of as traditional reading, equating it to a kind of revolutionary act. "Contemplative reading, then, is countercultural for a generation that is increasingly drawn away from silence, slowness, reflection, and internally generated imagination." (31) Would taking out the ear buds and turning a page really change anything? I'm not sure. But he does make quite a case for the ways our brains work and what happens to us when we're having to create a whole world from black squiggles on a page.

     Thoughtful, slow, critical, and appreciative reading is spiritually crucial in times like these. If we are to see beyond the cynicism of commodity culture, if we are to engage in the hard work of expanding democracy and producing citizens instead of consumers, we need to become affirmative and suspicious readers. So it does matter what we read, but it matters even more who we become by reading. (41)

And this is where his arguments really become intriguing, as he illustrates ways that the act of reading changes us. Little wonder that slave-owners didn't permit their charges to learn how to read. They might have got big ideas about throwing off their chains. And such ideas lead us to think about contemporary situations--to consider cultures in which girls and women aren't considered worthy of education, and even nearer at hand, where literacy programs are threatened by government cutbacks. The result will be a populace that is more easily manipulated, one less capable of challenging the mass hypnosis of consumerism (and as I would add, the paralyzing effects of a consciously created atmosphere of fear).

The book's bibliography is extensive, citing writers from Augustine to Simone Weil, with a surprising reliance on the work of quite a few poets, including Dionne Brand, Dennis Lee and Don McKay. The detailed nature of its index is so impressive, it's nearly a work of art.

One could find fault with the book's frequent repetitions, but really, these are simply the skilled repetitions of a good teacher--ones that serve to remind, to reinforce--ones that bring us spiralling back to a central idea.

Although each of its five sections could be read on separate occasions, and serve as the starting point for a kind of intellectual meditation, the book can also be digested as one very satisfying spiritual and mental feast.

Heidi Greco admits to a lifelong habit of reading in bed--and just about anywhere else.

Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.


Back to Reviews Index